So I'm back from playing hostess to my mother-in-law for a week. I'm tired. Doesn't matter who the guest is, hosting people in your home is tiring. But it also has its benefits--like help getting laundry done or walking in to the kitchen to wash breakfast dishes only to realize they are all shiny and clean, sitting in the dish-drainer. Love that.

I also want to say, on the record, that I went through every bag and box and tub of childrens clothes in our house, barn, shed, guest room. I currently have twelve bags of childrens clothes ready to go out the door to charity. Between tons of generous hand-me-downs, our Wisconsin clothes in storage joining with our Maryland clothes that we purchased when all the Wisconsin clothes were, well, in storage--it made for a LOT of stuff. A sickening amount of stuff. A "please don't open that closet or look under that bed amount of stuff." It feels so good to have things cleaned out and pared down. So good. Now all that's left to be done is to organize what's left by size and store it away. Ahhhhh...can you feel all the space I've created? Feels good.

This weekend, the girls and I watched the newish American Girl movie that just came out on DVD, Kit Kittredge. My girls are total movie lightweights. The least bit of scaryness or potential danger, or mean people, sends them scrambling for the "off" button. And that's just fine with me. I figure what's the rush in desensitizing them to scary things?

All that to say, the American Girl movies are some of our family favorites. I know I'm not a "characters" person, but these movies are clean, gentle-spirited and the girls are wholesome, mixed with a little bit of spunk. So while a lot of the issues of this newest movie went over their heads, there was one thing Emma did pick up on--the typewriter.

The next day, she sent my poor mother-in-law out to the shed where the extremely heavy typewriter had been stored, and had her haul it back to the house--unbeknownst to me. By late morning, Emma was writing stories, copying poems out of books, and covering my dining room table and floor in reams of white paper.

And of course, monkey see, monkey do....